IT’S ESTIMATED to have cost €91million in taxpayers’ money yet not a single block has been laid. Say hello to one of the last white elephants of the Celtic Tiger years: Dublin City Council’s Poolbeg Incinerator — a project that has been squeezing millions out of people’s pockets since the late 1990s with no end in sight to the fiasco. Free article

A RECENT Ipsos MRBI opinion poll showed that more than half (55%) of people wanted to see the upper house of parliament in Dublin, the Seanad, scrapped. Many consider it a talking shop, a place where politicians go to either launch their career or to ‘retire’ from the Dáil with a cushy number. The costs associated with operating it is also of major concern. In their Programme for Government, Fine Gael and Labour pledged to hold a referendum on abolishing the Seanad. Sinn Féin has said the Seanad is “undemocratic” and called for it to be “scrapped in its current form” followed by a root and branch reform of the instiution.
An Phoblacht’s MARK MOLONEY spoke to Sinn Féin Senator KATHRYN REILLY — at 24, the youngest member of the Oireachtas — about the Seanad’s future. Free article

BEYOND the news headlines at Belfast City Hall about the Union flag controversy and unionist attacks on the Short Strand neighbourhood in east Belfast, Sinn Féin MLA Alex Maskey was in the Philippines in December as part of an international delegation to help in the peace process in the south-east Asian islands.
Alex Maskey writes for An Phoblacht about how the Irish Peace Process is helping peace in the Philippines and while there is still a way to go he is hopeful. Premium service article

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